This mysterious space object is baffling astronomers all over the world

Two telescopes that are part of the ATLAS project in Hawaii have discovered an unnaturally bright explosion in the sky.

The discovery, made in mid-June, was published in Astronomer’s Telegram, where the object was assigned the name AT2018cow or “The Cow” for short.

Astronomers all over the world quickly got wind of the discovery and focused their telescopes onto the area in which the object was discovered. So far, at least 24 telescopes have examined the object more closely — and yet it’s still not clear what the explosion was caused by.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in the local universe,” astrophysicist at Queen’s University Belfast and director of the ATLAS project, Stephen Smartt, told theWashington Post.